Before the luxury of pushing a button or selecting a setting to fabricate a sound or sound effect, musicians had to create the sounds they wanted themselves. Portland’s indie folk quartet Horse Feathers maintains these older standards, bringing a household hand saw to the instrumental line up and introducing violin bows and drum sticks to surfaces other than those intended.

New York City's Merkin Concert Hall, in association with

After driving around downtown Boulder for about 20 minutes and finally finding a parking spot eight blocks away, I hurried through the crowds toward the Boulder Theater.  The John McLaughlin concert on Saturday just happened to coincide with the city’s annual Christmas parade.